In Other News: Jack Dorsey Steps Down From Twitter, TikTok Introduces their “creative exchange” and Instagram Unveils New Features

December 1, 2021 Gra Gareth In other news, Influencer Marketing, Insights, Instagram, Social Media, TikTok, Twitter

Another weekly round-up has landed! Here you can catch up on what’s going on in the digital space! This week we’re sharing the changing of the guard at Twitter, TikTok’s push to streamline influencer marketing, and two new features on Instagram – one of which is useful!

Jack Dorsey Steps Down as CEO of Twitter

Citing a concern that his capacity as co-founder was limiting Twitter’s innovation and growth goals, Dorsey has named former CTO Parag Agrawal as his successor. He will remain on the board until May, to ensure a smooth transition for Agrawal – which is very nice.

Incoming CEO Parag Agrawal started as an engineer at the company. Dorsey stated “Parag has been behind every critical decision that helped turn this company around […] My trust in him as our CEO is bone deep.”

Dorsey had previously faced pressure from activist investors Elliott Management Corp. who expressed concerns about his leadership, coming from Dorsey’s supposed reluctance to innovate/grow the company. This may be tied directly to Twitter’s recent slate of new features – Fleets (RIP), Super Follows, on-profile tipping, ticketed Spaces, professional profiles etc.

Tik Tok Introduces ‘TikTok Creative Exchange’

In essence, TikTok Creative Exchange is a super streamlined creative pipeline for brands to build and direct TikTok-specific influencer marketing campaigns. Agencies working on the behalf of brands, or brands themselves, set a brief to be pitched to influencers hand-picked by TikTok, projects are built out, shared and metrics are judged.

How does it work?

Submit the Brief – Brands (or those working on their behalf) set a brief for the project: what do they wish to communicate and how?
Choose the Creative Partner – TikTok provides a list of potential influencers for the brand to choose from based on their target market.
Manage the Project – provide feedback and suggestions to influencers based on their initial rounds of creative, launch the campaign etc.
Launch – Final creatives are collated and launched to the target audiences, after which insights are collected and metrics judged.

Instagram implements two new features

The most exciting new feature is ‘Carousel Deletion’, which is the ability to individually delete pictures from a carousel. This feature should be available globally to iOS users, using the edit function on the photo they wish to remove, they should see a wee trash icon in the top left corner. Useful in the case of mistaken uploads or when a pal is being funny with you. Not yet available on Android but we’re used to it. No word on replacing images – but it’s like the Twitter edit function – likely never to manifest.

The other feature is Rage Shake where you shake your phone to report that an Instagram feature isn’t working, might make you look bananas, might be cathartic! Just keep in mind that next time you see someone shaking their phone like a lunatic, it might be because their story doesn’t have audio.

Interested in running a Tik Tok influencer campaign and not sure how to go about it? Get in touch with us now at [email protected], we’d love to help!

How To Create An Impactful Influencer Marketing Campaign

November 8, 2021 Shannon Collins Influencer Marketing, Social Media

It’s no secret that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make a splash online. With the ever-changing trends and algorithms, even the best content can often fall flat. When it’s harder than ever to stand out on socials, how can you get your business in front of new eyes and potential customers? If your goal is increased brand awareness, online profile growth, and sales, then influencer marketing might be the answer. Although it may seem daunting, the reality is that a strategic influencer marketing campaign can generate incredible results for your brand.

Recently at PFM, we completed an influencer marketing campaign for our client, PriceRunner. We collaborated with a host of Scottish influencers to create a campaign which demonstrated how easy and valuable price comparison really is. We challenged our influencers to create a moment with PriceRunner, showing that price comparison is not just about saving money, it’s about creating and enhancing life experiences.

As well as some killer content, the #KitOut campaign generated:

21% increase in IG followers for @pricerunner_com
52.9% increase in brand searches
293k reel views
68k average story reach per influencer

Sounds great, right? But where do you start? To make things a little easier, here are our top 3 tips for creating an impactful influencer marketing campaign.

1. Be Picky

Do your research and make sure you choose the right people to represent your brand. Followers are great, but engagement metrics are the real indicator of the quality of an influencer’s audience. You can find a host of free platforms and calculators online to help you evaluate these metrics. We love using Not Just Analytics and Social Blade.

As well as making sure they have great metrics, it’s also a good idea to have a look at some of their previous brand work. Is their content high quality and do they show lots of enthusiasm? How have their followers engaged with previous campaigns?

2. Have a Strong Concept

When you find your people, make sure you give them an exciting concept to work with. Influencers are content creation experts and they know their audience better than anyone. They will be thrilled to receive a brief that allows them to get creative and put their own spin on the campaign. The best campaigns tell a story: try to think of a campaign that not only brings your products/service to life, but also speaks directly to the influencer’s audience.

3. Don’t Stop There

Now that you have all of this amazing content, it’s time to get the most out of it. The initial campaign is just the first step. Afterwards, it’s crucial to think of other ways that you can repurpose the influencer’s content to maximise your investment. You could reshare the content on your organic platforms, include it in upcoming paid ad campaigns and use it to create long-form blog content for your website – the potential reach and impact is huge!

Need some expert help to make your next influencer campaign a success? Get in touch with me at [email protected], I would love to chat!

In Other News: Instagram Kids Gets Shelved, Influencer Marketing Keeps Growing, and Consumer Confidence Tumbles

September 29, 2021 Maya Benabdelhadi Business, In other news, Industry, Influencer Marketing, Insights, Instagram, Social Media, Uncategorized

Welcome back to our weekly update, deciphering the latest digital marketing news for you! This week, we take you through the pausing of Instagram Kids, how influencer marketing is here to stay and the latest consumer confidence outlook.

Instagram Kids Debacle

A little while ago, the Facebook Group started working on Instagram Kids, a platform specifically designed for tweens (10 to 13 years old). The aim of this new platform was to safeguard against kids misrepresenting their age and using the wider Instagram app, were the content is not age-appropriate.

“We firmly believe that it’s better for parents to have the option to give their children access to a version of Instagram that is designed for them – where parents can supervise and control their experience – than relying on an app’s ability to verify the age of kids who are too young to have an ID.” (Instagram)

However, this decision was met with growing suspicion from child safety collectives and, most recently, sparked a scathing expose from the Wall Street Journal. The main concerns about this project are the following:

Instagram Kids would push induce a constant focus on appearance and personal branding from a young age
Negative impact on mental health
Privacy issues

While the Facebook group denied these claims, it has decided to pause Instagram Kids while it consults parents and governmental bodies alike so as to be able to design a safer and positive platform.

Influencer Marketing: Big and Getting Bigger

Even though it already was an incredibly profitable industry, influencer marketing keeps getting bigger! It has proven as particularly effective for brands, especially when it comes to building and consolidating brand awareness and strength. In spite of the pandemic, influencer marketing has established itself as a relatively safe marketing tactic. As such, brands have overall increased their share of budget allocated to influencer marketing in 2020 and 2021.

But what makes influencer marketing so resilient?

Distrust of hard-selling tactics coming directly from marketers
Rising importance of social proof
Taste for authentic content (recommendations)

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is.” (Scott Cook, Inuit CEO)

As influencers represent what customers aspire to, they remain a good way for brands to subtly influence consumer perceptions while still meeting the mark of authentic customer-made content.

Stormy Consumer Confidence Outlook

In September, the general consumer confidence has degraded in anticipation of impaired personal finances and economic hardship. The main sources of worry that led to this drop in confidence are the following:

Expectation of rising tax
End of furlough
Fuel crisis
Brexit collateral damage (e.g. shortages)

So what does this mean for digital marketers? When consumers are worried about their disposable income (the amount of money they have left to spend after paying their taxes), they are more likely to be sensitive to price. As such, they may turn to off-brand products, limit spending on higher-end products, prioritise favourite hobbies over passing interests… and be more responsive to sales.

But it’s not all doom and gloom! This suggests that Black Friday and Cyber Monday will be even more important to consumers than in previous years. It is highly likely that they will concentrate the bulk of their “interests and treats” shopping to such big sales to maximise the bang for their hard-earned buck. So there’s no time to waste, it’s now time to prepare your BFCM game plan…

Do you need help making influencer marketing work for your brand or preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Get in touch with us at [email protected]!

CategoryInfluencer Marketing